Tuesday, May 26, 2009

How the Internet Changed Music

"In 1998, Death Cab for Cutie was just another tenderhearted indie-rock band signed to a minor record label, playing empty clubs for $50 a night. But after two years of soul-crushing obscurity, something strange happened: people started going to the band's shows...Death Cab is just one of the Internet-and-music stories chronicled in Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot's book Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music. Kot talks to TIME about the demise of the music industry, whether illegal file-sharing is really that bad and why there may never be another band as big as the Beatles."